YMMV / Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: The Abridged Series

• Ass Pull: The Reveal at the end of episode 6 where Emu learns that he's the protagonist of a toku abridged series was changed from the original version where he learned that he's the creator of Mighty No. 9. Many people prefer the original twist, which had more buildup from the start, as the one in the final cut of the episode is seemingly contradictory to the previous Breaking the Fourth Wall jokes involving Emu made before.
• Broken Base: Is the original reveal of episode six that Emu was the creator of Mighty No. 9 better than the actual reveal that he’s unknowingly the protagonist of a toku abridged series? The people against the change state that all the foreshadowing for the original reveal was for naught, while the new reveal came out of absolutely nowhere.
  • According to this post, the only ones who knew about the change were Marcos and Special, and the rest of the voice actors were none too happy about the change, especially since they were kept in the dark.
  • The Author's Saving Throw above mitigates it by incorporating the original reveal into the beginning of episode 7 without retconning the end of episode 6.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The fact that the "Sad Ex-Aid" image is cropped from a piece of Rule 34 fan art of Ex-Aid Action Gamer Level 1.
  • The Black Comedy of the mortal peril that Emu’s child patients are often subject to.
  • Urataros being completely unfazed after Kagura/ToQ #5 comments that she's only ten years old when he tries to hit on her.
  • Makoto having The Immodest Orgasm when he thinks he’s surrounded by several versions of his sister.
  • While the show itself doesn’t really go into potentially offensive territory especially often, Emu’s voice actress Madds McCool has a rather twisted sense of humor that sometimes comes out in behind the scenes stuff.
    • In the Cards Against Humanity stream, she ad-libs a line revealing that the reason Taiga wears a wig is because he’s balding due to chemotherapy treatments for the cancer that the Proto Gashats gave him.
    • During a commentary of True Ending she does an in-character line of Emu diagnosing a child with terminal autism.
    • Her Enforced Method Acting when recording the electrocution sounds Emu made after he failed to use Drago Knight Hunter Z; namely, she jammed a fork into an outlet.
    • According to a cast commentary of the first five episodes, the Political Overcorrectness joke with Judeo Judeo Burger was written by her trying to be offensive.
• Discredited Meme:
  • Some viewers, and even a few people in the cast (e.g. HyperJacob96 and Smith Danigans), dislike the "Sad Ex-Aid" meme and consider it overused and unfunny due to its… origins.
    • Mage is the one who introduced it to the group, and even she doesn't find it funny anymore, but mostly because she feels like this is stealing art.
  • People were already getting tired of Hiiro's Catchphrase being, "my girlfriend is dead" as early as episode 2. Thankfully, the addition of the Graphite & Saki ghosts and this video seem to have Running Gagged this joke, while the show itself still finds new ways to keep referencing it in funny ways. As of recent though, this the joke seems to have resurged in a more positive light, being brought up quite often when discussing Hiiro, both abridged or canon.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Takeru's silly voice and hilarious personality have won over a few fans who were disinterested in the original character.
  • The ghosts of Graphite and Saki.
• Fountain of Memes: Takeru Tenkuji. Gokai Orange's performance manages to turn "Ore wa Tenkūji Takeru" from what was perceived as a annoying, to a delightful Catchphrase, and the character's devotion to Fruit Jesus and obsession with wanting to be Spider-Man have made him quite the meme.

• Growing the Beard: The first few episodes are good, but nothing spectacular. Episodes 3 and 4 onward tighten up on the writing and comedy, taking steps to address the criticisms people had of the first two episodes, such as the overuse of catchphrases. It helps that Maddie and Proto's respective health issues had since subsided and were no longer affecting their performances as they were in the first two episodes. Episode 4 also marks the introduction of Nico and Masamune, and more or less replaces the "my girlfriend is dead" jokes with the Graphite and Saki ghosts.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Episode 4 makes a few offhand jokes about Emu having a Disappeared Dad. With the release of Mighty Novel X, it's revealed that this is exactly the case in canon, which would be Hilarious in Hindsight if not for the fact that the novel details how Emu has major daddy issues because of it and is borderline suicidal.
  • Graphite asking if Parad is going to force Emu to do gravure while possessing him is harder to laugh at following the controversy about Toei cross promoting the gravure work of their cast in official marketing^note While tokusatsu shows for children are no stranger to casting gravure models and porn actresses and have done so without complaint before, the backlash comes from the irresponsibility of promoting said softcore content in media aimed at children.
  • In the Cards Against Humanity stream, Taiga makes an offhand Shout-Out to JewWario by mentioning familiarity with a Kamen Rider who transforms using Famicom cartridges like Gashats. Some time later during the #ChangeTheChannel controversy in early 2018, it came to light that Carmical was a sexual predator, and the creator of the FamiKamen Rider movie made In Memoriam to him disavowed the works and tributes involving him. Needless to say, the reference has aged poorly.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Chou Super Hero Taisen Abridged has a joke about how they “couldn’t get Takeru Satō back,” referencing how his popularity post-Den-O has made it nigh impossible for Toei to afford getting him to reprise the role of Ryōtarō Nogami in the numerous movies and crossovers Den-O has appeared in since then. The very next year, Heisei Generations FOREVER finally got him back after a decade-long absence.
  • Their interpretation of Tenkuji Takeru had him screaming from the top of his lungs about The Power of Friendship. He's ironically not too far off from a later Rider.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Sad Ex-Aid"^note An image frequently seen in the background of various videos, which is a cropped image of Ex-Aid Action Gamer Level 1’s tearful face that originated from Rule 34 fanart, although some consider it a Forced Meme or a Discredited Meme as mentioned above.
    • "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TAG ME, YOU ASS!"^note HyperJacob96's reaction to being tagged in a twitter post with Sad Ex-Aid.
  • ProtoDubs voices everyone.^note ProtoDubs noticeably has multiple roles in this series, so much so that people have said that he voices too many characters. This was noticed by the crew behind Ex-Aid Abridged and made into a Running Gag.
  • ENCASE THE BOY!^note When the people behind Ex-Aid Abridged watched the first episode of Kamen Rider Build together, Mage said this in response to seeing the Snap Ride Builders enclosing the halfbodies around Sento for his transformation into Build.
    • ENGULF THE MAN!^note The Cross-Z version of this, reacting to the Dragon wings enclosing Ryuga.
• She Really Can Act:
  • Madds McCool is a freaking amazing voice actress, with some standout moments being Emu's reaction to Kiriya's death and later his scream when it’s revealed to him that he's the protagonist of a toku abridged series.
  • Kiriya's death scene in general showcased a lot of skilled acting performances from HyperJacob96 and SpecialForm12.
  • ProtoDubs is quite a versatile voice actor, as proven by his numerous roles and the different voices he gives to each of them. The true testaments to his skill as a voice actor would probably be how he manages to make Another Hiiro distinct from the regular Hiiro and the fact that most people were unaware that he voiced the orange Ex-Aid Mighty Brother until his voice reel revealed so.
  • Smith Danigans and Mage in episode 7, with Nico's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Taiga and Taiga's flashbacks to his Dark and Troubled Past hitting hard.
  • Smith and Mage in episode 8, especially their anger (Taiga angry at Nico for putting herself in danger, Nico mad at Taiga for not letting her help) and Nico's shriek of pain.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The Reveal at the end of episode 6 that Emu is the creator of Mighty No. 9 was something the show had been building up to from the very beginning, but it got replaced at the last minute with Emu learning he's the protagonist of a toku abridged series. Many people prefer the original twist to the latter.
    • Subverted with episode 7, which follows up by including the original twist at the start and expanding on both twists later on.
  • Chou Super Hero Taisen: The Abridged Movie lampshades a particularly egregious example of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot from the original Chou Super Hero Taisen when the matches between the various teams are skipped over entirely.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Takeru, in a case similar to Jaden Yuki in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. While the original character was largely hated by the fandom because of the poor reception to their show, and the characters in-universe have the same opinion of the abridged version as the fans do of the original version, the abridged version has won over some fans with his hilarious portrayal.